This book is awful. It's not just awful, it's offensive and immature and badly written. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but I'd enjoyed The Martian and hoped the followup would be fun in a similar way. It wasn't. There was nothing fun about this book.

Let's start with Jazz: Jazz Bashara is a Saudi woman written the way a white guy who's never spoken to or met a single woman in his entire life would write her. She talks about her boobs and being naked and makes sexual innuendos about EVERYTHING. Seriously, there are 15 y/o boys who could have written this character with greater respect and far fewer sex jokes.

The slut shaming: How many times can people (including Jazz) mention that she has SO MUCH SEX? Some mention it as a means to shame her, Jazz mentions it to brag. It's just weird and gross and, honestly, only something a guy would write.

The gay jokes: Just because Weir wrote a gay character into the book doesn't mean he gets to demean that character. The only person who's probably mentioned as having more sex than Jazz is Dale. Because gay men are sluts, am I right? Get it? Because they have a lot of sex. Oh, and not only is the gay guy a slut, but he stole Jazz's boyfriend and slept with him while he and Jazz were still together. If I had my way I would ban Weir from ever writing about another gay character in any book for the rest of his life.

Then there's just lots of random messed up stuff. Like how one of Jazz's ex-boyfriends (who's 24) cheats on her with a 14 y/o girl, and Jazz blows it off by saying how the city on the moon doesn't have an age of consent because lots of people have different morals. WTF?!?!? There's also the odd subplot that goes nowhere about the reusable condom. LOTS of broad, offensive generalizations about other cultures.

And the plot isn't even good. It's a mess of highly unlikely stuff happening split by sex jokes and then more stuff happening that would never ever happen in real life (and not just because it's on the moon, but because (view spoiler)[when you sabotage three pieces of mining equipment, blow up a company, and poison 2,000 people you go to jail. Saying Jazz doesn't because they don't have one or whatever is stupid. (hide spoiler)]

I thought Armada, the followup to Ready Player One was bad, but this book is a crime against literature. Don't waste your time as I've wasted mine. Read something, anything other than this.

Comments
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Shaun, you are right on every count. This is, at best, hilariously bad. And NO ONE who really likes syfy (I thought "Waking Gods" was sensational, by the way) would EVER vote for this book for Best Syfy. Geeks have respect for themselves!!!!

Branden wrote: "Wow thank you for your review. I won't be wasting my money on this garbage. Sounds like a book perfect for the people currently ruining our country."Yes! As another reviewer says, this is like "Spaceballs" to "Star Wars". How about "Trump" to "Obama"?

Yeah the way they constantly reminded you that Dale is gay was so frustrating. His response to the women's 'catfight' in the rover (I'm too gay for this to be hot, cut it out) made my eyes roll all the way back in my head. It's like Weir decided to cram a bunch of diverse characters into the book (gay, Arab, Muslim etc) without doing any research whatsoever.

I gave it three stars, but I find myself agreeing with your review. I was aware it was bad as I was reading it. Sort of like an entertaining B movie that's chessy and lame, but you started it so you might as well see it through to the end.

Shaun wrote: "Frances wrote: "Yeah the way they constantly reminded you that Dale is gay was so frustrating. His response to the women's 'catfight' in the rover (I'm too gay for this to be hot, cut it out) made ..."Shawn, I did have to laugh when Dale says, "Do you hate me because I'm Jewish or because I'm gay."

Greg wrote: "Shaun wrote: "Frances wrote: "Yeah the way they constantly reminded you that Dale is gay was so frustrating. His response to the women's 'catfight' in the rover (I'm too gay for this to be hot, cut..."

Well darn, I meant to reply to Randy. I totally agree with you. And I still think there's some charm to Weir's writing; just not in this book.

Frances wrote: "Yeah the way they constantly reminded you that Dale is gay was so frustrating. His response to the women's 'catfight' in the rover (I'm too gay for this to be hot, cut it out) made my eyes roll all..."Frances, I agree. And the author also kept reminding us that the engineer/inventor was a virgin who didn't know how to talk about women. But the author didn't knock us over the head with who was straight. Once the basic conflict was pointed out (Dale betrayed Jazz by stealing her boyfriend), that's all we really needed to know about Dale being gay. And when the author continually throws in comments like "I'm too gay for this to be hot", one realizes the author must have had a stockpile of bad gay " jokes" lying around, so he created a character to use them.

I find it interesting that most of the positive reviews are from men and most of the negative reviews are from women - yours stands out because it actually talks about the flaws in the book, from conception to execution. A great review. Thanks

Literally couldn't agree more. You're the first male review I've read who thinks the same as I do. I've never read a book and been so utterly shocked at the main character. I hadn't read a book in ages and this book got me back into reading and what a crappy way to get back into it. Although now I am going to rush to read something else to remove the memory of this book from my mind.

LOL, you guys (and ladies) are hilarious. And so uptight! It seems you people simply don't like Andy Weir's sense of humor - fair enough; but then you just shouldn't have read this book at all, especially if you read The Martian before - from that one, the author's typical style jokes should have been pretty obvious; it's not rocket science (pun fully intended). I hate to say it, but you people seem to have been completely unable to understand some of the jokes - for some of them, you didn't even realize they were jokes, and that characters are actually pulling each other's leg, not being serious... and uptight like... you. So yeah, this novel is hard sci-fi comedy, and that's what you should have expected - nothing more. And I friggin' LOVED it (as well as the protagonist, whom I loved just as much, as Mark from The Martian!) - it is exactly my kind of thing. If it is not your kind of thing, and yet you had read The Martian before it - well, you should have known it right then, and not wasted your time with this one; I'm sorry to hear you did.

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